The Case for De-Facing

I have to admit to not being a huge Facebook user. I do like to post the odd photo and will occasionally use it to contact people I don’t see regularly and once used it to try and arrange an event. It is occasionally useful, occasionally frustrating, and an amazing way to keep in contact with people abroad and to reacquaint oneself with people from the past. I do know there are some people who live their lives on Facebook, either as a hyperactive contributor or as a cybervoyeur (I think my own behaviour, less participating than observing, would put me into the latter camp), but it has never really appealed to me that much. Perhaps because it can also be really destructive.



While it is great that people can rediscover lost friends, there is the reverse phenomenon to which I have been subjected on several different occasions. The act of “de-Friending” is possibly a really good way of keeping the number of friends whose lives one follows down to a manageable number. It is probably a really good way of banishing those whose online antics has offended in one of the many ways one can cross acceptable behaviour boundaries online: posting unflattering photos; not posting photos; revealing personal secrets in a publicly viewable thread; being beaten on an online game; inviting people to join too many groups; not being invited to an event; basically, if there is an application on Facebook that does something that involves others, then it is highly likely that it can be used in such a way as to annoy someone else. Cracked published the graph below that helps (somewhat).



And, of course, there is also an i-phone application that will keep a track of these things.



However, as mentioned, I don’t tend to use Facebook a lot, and when I do I tend to keep messages short and to ensure that photos I share are people-less or that others are aware if I am putting their image online. So it comes as an interesting and bemusing and mildly disconcerting realisation when I discover that I have been de-friended. I am not the only one, I know, but still.

This has happened to me a few times, the most recent time I became aware of it being this morning. I was hoping to track some old primary school fellow attendees down and, when the more regular channels failed to yield results, I switched to a more circuitous route through someone else who tended to be fairly well connected. Much to my surprise, I discovered this individual, who I know used to be on my Facebook list of friends as I had sent what I thought was a fairly innocuous message to them a few weeks earlier, no longer appeared on my list of friends. This person appeared on the lists of mutual friends (so I re-requested them as a friend; we shall see what comes of that), but on a one-to-one level, according to the internet rules of relationships, any relationship ties we may have once had now appear to have been severed.

As I know this kind of thing happens all the time (and there are websites dedicated to encouraging defriending too), and I cannot claim to have really been close to this person for a long time, I had to smile when I realised this disassociation, though there was a tinge of bitterness that made my expression more a grimace than an open laugh. It is therefore a bit of a mixed sensation, having one’s friendship revoked in such a manner. It’s both noticeable and an active, conscious decision, but also remains impersonal and, in its own way, a very “nice” way of letting people know what others think of them.

Personally, I don’t actually know how to snub someone in such a manner using the modern technology at my disposal. To be honest, my Facebook account is not something I really care that much about, in that what I put up there is for as much public consumption as this blog, so I don’t really mind who has access to it. Evidently, this is not the case with everyone.

Quite what the “sharing criteria” are though do intrigue me. I know some limit their Facebook associates to 100, culling excess friends through a complex decision-making matrix. Others just refuse to accept those they are unsure of (I am in that bracket), but will befriend anyone else and leave them on my list until Facivilisation comes to an end. And of course, defriending due to an actual friendship meltdown makes perfect sense. But there are obviously other criteria out there that shift with time and other relevant dimensions. And these less obvious rules intrigue me, especially as I seem to be suffering from their harsh dictates more regularly as time goes on.


Verdict: Facebook is a fascinating social phenomenon. People are more in touch with each other, more connected, than ever before. But that does not mean that the art of friendship is any less complex or any more understandable. 7 tweets out of 10. But I will let you know how I get on in the Facebook friendship stakes.